also to each State in the Confederacy. For in the act of re-union each State was perfectly free and independent, uncontrolled and uncontrollable by any power upon earth.

But this fact, which is far too recent and too well authenticated to be denied by any one, goes to the very foundation of the government of the United States, and shows that its Constitution rested on a federal, and not on a national act. It shows that it was a union of States, effected by the several act of each State, and not the union of all the individuals in America, acting as one political community.

All this was known to Mr. Webster. No man with the least political information or reading could have remained ignorant of it. But still he glossed it over, or kept it in the far distant background, as unsuited to his hypothesis and to the logic of the Northern power, that the Constitution was ordained by "the people of the United States in the aggregate," and not by the people of the United States in the segregate. And yet, after he has given his onesided, superficial, and unfair statement, he calls it "a plain account," and asks, "Now, sir, is not this the truth of the whole matter? And is not all that we have heard of a compact between Sovereign States the mere effect of a theoretical and artificial mode of reasoning upon the subject?—a mode of reasoning which disregards plain facts for the sake of hypothesis?" Comment is unnecessary.

Mr. Webster's "plain account" is, in fact, a gross falsification of history. If possible, however, it is surpassed by Mr. Motley. This most unscrupulous writer asserts: "The Constitution was not drawn up by the States, it was not promulgated in the name of the States, it was not ratified by the States."* Now each and every one of these assertions is diametrically opposed to the truth. Strike out the little syllable "not" from every clause of the above sentence, and it will then express the exact truth. For, *Rebellion Record, vol. 1, p. 211.

in the first place, as the record shows, it is a plain and incontrovertible fact, that the Consttitution was drawn up or framed by the States.

It was drawn up or framed, as every one knows, by the Convention of 1787; in which the States, and the States alone, were represented. Every iota of the Constitution was decided upon, and found a place in that written instrument, by a vote of the States; each State having one vote; the little State of Delaware, for example, having an equal vote with New York, Pennsylvania, or Virginia. No fact should be more perfectly notorious, or well-known, than this; for it stands out everywhere on the very face of the proceedings of the Convention, which framed the Constitution. Thus, for example, "On the question for a single Executive; it was agreed to,-Massachusetts, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, aye-7; New York, Delaware, Maryland, no3."* In like manner, every other item of the Constitution was decided upon, and the whole instrument formed, by a vote of the States; acting as separate, independent, and equal bodies. How, in the face of such a fact, could Mr. Motley so boldly assert, that the Constitution was not drawn up, or framed, by the States? By whom, then, was it framed? Was it framed by "the people of the United States in the aggregate;" acting as one nation? Nothing is farther from the truth. There is not even the shadow of a foundation for any such assertion or insinuation. Will it be said, that the Constitution was drawn up, not by the States, but by those who proposed its various articles? If so, such a subterfuge would be nothing to the purpose, and very far from deserving a moment's notice.

The second assertion of Mr. Motley, that the Constitution "was not promulgated in the name of the States," is equally unfortunate. For, as every one knows, it was *The Madison Papers, p. 783.

promulgated by the Congress of the Confederation in which the States alone were represented, and in which all the States were perfectly equal. The "Articles of Confederation" says: "In determining questions in the United States, in Congress assembled, each State shall have one vote!"* It was thus as equals that the States voted in determining to promulgate the new Constitution; and it was in consequence of that action of the States, that the Constitution was promulgated and laid before the people of the several States for their adoption. Here, again, in direct opposition to the unblushing assertion of Mr. Motley, the Constitution was promulgated by the States in Congress assembled. If Mr. Motley had only deigned to glance at the history of the transaction about which he speaks so confidently, he could not have failed to perceive, that the Constitution was first submitted, by the Convention of 1787, "to the United States in Congress assembled;"† and that it was afterwards, in conformity with the opinion of the Convention, promulgated by the States "in Congress assembled." But Mr. Motley's theory of the Constitution takes leave of history; and has little to do with facts, except to contradict them.

"The Constitution was not ratified by the States," says Motley. In the Resolutions just quoted, and which were unanimously adopted by the Convention of 1787, we find this clause: 'Resolved, That in the opinion of this Convention that as soon as the Convention of nine States shall have ratified this Constitution, the United States in Congress assembled should fix a day on which electors should be appointed by the States which shall have ratified the same," &c. Not one of the fathers of the Constitution ever imagined that it was not ratified by the States. But in this instance, as well as in many others,

* Art. V.

+Resolutions which, "by the unanimous order of the Convention' of 1787, was forwarded with the Constitution to Congress.

their most familiar idea is repudiated, and their most explicit language is contradicted, by Mr. Motley.

In the sentence next to the one above quoted from Motley, he says: "The States never acceded to it [the Constitution,] and possess no power to secede from it."* This peremptory and flat contradiction of the language of the fathers of the Constitution deserves no further notice; since it has already been sufficiently exposed.

* Chapter III.

CHAPTER IX.

The Constitution a Compact between the States-The language of the Constitution.

2. The Language of the Constitution. "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, ..............................do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." The first clause of this preamble to the Constitution, wholly detached from its history and from every other portion of the same instrument, as well as from all the contemporary and subsequent expositions of its authors, is made the very corner-stone of the Northern theory of the general government of the United States. That tremendous theory, or scheme of power, has been erected on this naked, isolated, and, as we expect to show, grossly misinterpreted clause.

From the bare words of this clause it is concluded, both by Story and Webster, that the Constitution was established or ratified, not by a federal but by a national act; or, in other terms, that it was not ratified by the States, but by a power superior to the States, that is, by the sovereign will of "the whole people of the United States in the aggregate," acting as one nation or political community. With Puritanical zeal they stick to "the very words of the Constitution," while the meaning of the words is unheeded by them, either because it is unknown, or because it does not suit their purpose. But words are not the money, they are merely the counters, of wise men. The meaning of the Constitution is the Constitution.

In arriving at the meaning of these words, of the very